


Shattered

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 00:49:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle knows she can't have her happy ending, but she will give Rumpelstiltskin his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shattered

**Author's Note:**

> I was having a bad day and I had no cake. This is the result.

She never raised her voice.

She never lost her temper.

She never cried.

Day by day, they lived, they loved, they watched the world go by. Day by day, Storybrooke was still sealed against the world. Day by day, the magic took him until he was the Dark One as he had been, and the curse was his only focus.

She could not touch him anymore. He wouldn’t allow it, for fear the power would be taken, and his son would be lost forever. She could not love him as she did, because he pushed her back, kept her at arm’s length, as much as it pained them both. She could not bear the feel of his magic crawling across her skin like a suffocating mantle, protecting and stifling her at once.

She never wanted to leave him.

She never wanted to feel hollow.

She never wanted to pack up her few belongings and walk out the door.

She walked. It took hours, but she was alone.

For once, the town was at peace, the greatest powers licking their wounds and beating at the walls, trying to find a way out in a world too small for them all.

Belle walked on and on.

Eventually, she left her bag by the side of the road.

It only slowed her down.

She knew she wouldn’t need it.

A sign lay ahead, burned and smouldered from fireballs and spells and conjurations cast in rage. The words were barely visible anymore. You are now leaving Storybrooke.

They had tried everything: good and bad.

The curse was powerful, too powerful.

A sacrifice had been made for the casting, but magic was a living creature. It knew the sacrifice was only for the casting, not for the reason behind it. That would cost something more, something precious, something that had to be fought for and when won, when given freely, was the most powerful and precious thing in all the realms.

Belle stood at the borders of the land that contained the forest now.

She never cried.

Her eyes were hot and wet, and she knew he would never forgive her, but maybe, if he found Baelfire, he could forgive himself.

No one, she told herself, chooses my fate but me.

She stepped across the boundary and heard and felt the magic shatter like glass. And like glass, she felt it tear her to shreds. She smiled through her tears as the world went black.


End file.
